Heidegger

Cologne 28-Jan-2008

Anthony Crifasi schrieb Mon, 21 Jan 2008 13:28:37 -0600:

> Michael Eldred wrote:
>
> >> AC: For Aristotle and Plato, though, the gods are in *no* sense there in
> >> cleaning the latrine or peeling potatoes, or any such productive
> >> activity. Aristotle quite explicitly states that there is only one human
> >> activity that has any kinship to the activity of the gods -
> >> contemplative wisdom:
> >
> > ME: I said “_to theion_, not _ho theos_”. I am not talking about any “activity of
> > the gods”, but about the presence of the godly, _to theion_, in the everyday, even
> > when peeling potatoes. For both Plato and Aristotle, the presence of the _idea_ and
> > _eidos_ in beings is divine, by virtue of which the philosopher has a divine gaze.
>
> AC: I do agree that Aristotle says the philosopher’s gaze is divine, but I
> can’t find any text in which he says or indirectly implies that simply
> the eidos in everyday beings is divine. I can find, on the other hand,
> countless texts in which Aristotle explicitly characterizes the
> philosopher’s gaze regarding *changeless and eternal* beings
> (specifically) as divine. For Plato, on the other hand, there is much
> more of an affinity between the divine and the eidos of everyday beings,
> precisely because he metaphysically *distinguished* everyday beings from
> their ideas. But this was the main point of contention between Aristotle
> and Plato.

ME: For Aristotle, the philosopher sees _to theion_, which is the _aei on_, the “forever
being”, which can be the celestial bodies forever circling in their unchanging orbits,
but also _to ti aen einai_ or “the what-it-was-ness”, standardly translated into English
as “essence” or, in other words, the _eidos_, the ’sight’ by virtue of which a being
shows itself _as_ a being. The philosopher is able to see what a being always was, apart
from the accidents of its existence as _tode ti_, i.e. as “this some-what”. Similarly for
Plato, the philosopher is the rare one able to stand steadfastly looking at the sight of
the _ideai_ which are present also in everyday things. The traditional demarcation line
between Plato and Aristotle as ‘idealist’ and ‘realist’ is one of the most stupid
prejudices in philosophy. This traditional view depends on taking Plato’s mythical
parables to explain things at face value, i.e. as the ‘real thing’. For both Plato and
Aristotle, even the lowly potato only shows itself as a being by virtue of the divine
_eidos_ of what it always already was, its _to ti aen einai_.

> > ME: What comes from the oracle is not “knowledge”, but “signs” which hint at the
> > possibility of self-knowledge.
>
> AC: Plato’s appeals to oracles were hardly limited to general hints about
> self-knowledge (i.e., to what the oracle said about his “mission” or his
> motto to “Know Thyself”). In the Laws, Plato calls upon Delphi to help
> set laws on religious matters (VI, 729c) and establish festivals and
> rites (VIII, 828a). He also appeals to the oracle in settling matters of
> civil law where some sort of divine choice is required (IX, 856c-e ; XI,
> 913c-914a). In these texts, oracles clearly play more the role of an
> authoritative arbiter that is called upon to settle very specific
> matters. This is very different from Heraclitus’ attitude towards oracles.

ME: For both Plato and Heraclitus, the “signs” given by the oracle are taken seriously.
They must be interpreted.

> >> AC: Also, there is a long tradition in medieval Christian philosophy of
> >> thinking man as being in the “image and likeness” of God due precisely
> >> to our *reason*, with many of those Christian philosophers citing the
> >> above passage as well as others in which Aristotle similarly references
> >> reason as being the part of us that is most divine. So I don’t think
> >> that this Greek philosophical exposition of the divine is
> >> incomprehensible from within Christianity. Heraclitus, on the other
> >> hand, may be a different matter.
> >
> > ME. There is a long debate within Christianity (and Islam) about whether the use of
> > reason (in theology) supports faith or ruins it. What interested Christianity about
> > Aristotle was _ho theos_ as the summum ens and causa sui, not the presence of _to
> > theion_ in the everyday.
>
> AC: Agreed that that is what primarily interested Christianity about
> Aristotle, but my point was that Aristotle’s thesis that reason is the
> most divine part of us was indeed *comprehensible* from within
> Christianity, even if that is not the original source of Christian
> interest in Aristotle.
>

ME: For Aristotelean metaphysics to be of any (theological) use to Christianity, it must
exploit the ambiguity in Aristotle between _to theion_ and _ho theos_. Once this
ambiguity is clarified — which is fundamentally the same ambiguity in Plato and
Aristotle between _to on_ and _einai_, between beings and being — the ontological
difference can be seen more clearly.

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_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred (c)_-_-
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Posted on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 11:25 am
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